by Warren Buffett · Charlie Munger
Two men in Omaha. One built the latticework of mental models; the other rode them to the longest sustained outperformance in capital-market history. A ledger of what they actually said - and a working manual of how they thought.
tags: buffett, munger, berkshire, mental models, inversion, compounding, investing, wisdom, latticework, circle of competence, incentives
A · D · M M X X V · THE OMAHA LEDGER · OF
BUFFETT&MUNGER
TWO MEN · ONE LEDGER · SIXTY YEARS
“Charlie is the architect. I am the general contractor.”
“Spend each day trying to be a little wiser than you were when you woke up.” - C.M.
The Omaha Ledger
362 entries from Warren Buffett (130) and Charlie Munger (232) - 362 showing. Pick a voice, a mental model, or any phrase to search.
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Colophon
The combined ledger holds 232 entries from Munger and 130 from Buffett - three hundred and sixty-two quotations, filterable by voice (BOTH / BUFFETT / MUNGER), by scope (ALL / PRACTICAL for the late-life curated subset), by mental model, and by any phrase.
The Munger corpus draws on 153 entries from Tao of Charlie Munger (David Clark, Scribner, 2017); the full text of the 1986 Harvard School commencement address; Poor Charlie's Almanack (Kaufman ed., 2005); selected Daily Journal Annual Meetings (2014–2023); and the USC Law (2007) and Caltech (2008) commencements.
The Buffett corpus draws on Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholder letters (1957–present); the 1991 Notre Dame faculty talk; the 1998 University of Florida talk; the 2007 USC commencement; The Snowball (Alice Schroeder, 2008); and the Berkshire annual meetings (1980–present).
Section VIII (the biases & thinking-tools kit) draws on Seeking Wisdom: From Darwin to Munger (Peter Bevelin, 2007), condensed by Derek Sivers. The taxonomy of mental models is Munger's own, from the 1994 USC Business School address ("Elementary Worldly Wisdom").
The interactive elements:
- The Two Rules / Inner Scorecard - Buffett's most quoted line and his father Howard's framework.
- The Latticework / Inversion - Munger from the 1994 USC and 1996 Stanford talks.
- Circle of Competence / Incentives / Compounding - both, drawn from the AGM record.
- The Hiring Filter - Buffett, U. of Florida 1998.
- The 20-Punch Card - Buffett, Berkshire AGM 1991.
- Three Career Rules - Munger, Poor Charlie's Almanack.
- The 5/25 Rule - Buffett, in conversation with Mike Flint.
- A Prescription for Misery - Munger, Harvard School commencement, 13 June 1986.
The guarantee-misery commencement speech is published in full separately: How to Guarantee a Life of Misery.
Warren E. Buffett · b. 1930 · still working at 95.
Charles T. Munger · 1924 – 2023 · 99 years, 33 days.